


A Breathless Feeling

by Grumpy_Cupcake



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M, No betas we die like Glenn, Was supposed to be a sickfic but you know, Written in three hours whilst drugged up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21686545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grumpy_Cupcake/pseuds/Grumpy_Cupcake
Summary: Dimitri starts coughing up petals. Surely he's just choking some weeds, right?
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 11
Kudos: 179





	A Breathless Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in three hours under the influence of sleep deprivation and some strong painkillers because I am suffering from a cold that has left me bedridden. I'm sorry if it's crap, blame the drugs.

Dimitri has barely made it three steps outside the Blue Lions classroom before he starts coughing.

Struggling to breathe in-between the coughs, he rummages inside his satchel and pulls out a handkerchief to catch the germs. As he’s coughs into the tissue for what feels like the eightieth time that day, he wonders where the sudden illness has sprung up from. If the weather was cold, such as in the middle of Ethereal or Guardian Moon, he would understand where this cold came from. But it is during one the of warmest season of the year, Blue Sea Moon. Every student in Garreg Mach Monastery has shed their jacket and rolled their sleeves up, even those who normally wear their uniform immaculately no matter the weather.

_Curse this damn illness._

“Oof, you don’t sound so good, Your Highness. Maybe you should stop by the Infirmary?”

Dimitri finishes cleaning himself up and tucks the worryingly blood-stained handkerchief into his bag, ready to be washed when he got the chance. Still coughing slightly, he looks up to see Claude smiling at him. His coat is casually slung over one shoulder and the sleeves to his golden-yellow shirt have been rolled up past his elbows. The afternoon sun is at the perfect angle to illuminate the hundreds of freckles that dot his skin along his face and arms, and his grin is so bright it is almost blinding.

“I’ll be fine, Claude.” Dimitri says, clearing his throat. “I’ve just been struck by this damned cold that won’t seem to go away.”

“Well, I’m off to go have some afternoon tea with Hilda and Sylvain. You’re welcome to join us, if you want.” Claude leans obnoxiously close and pats him on the shoulder. “We’ll get some chamomile tea ready for you.”

As Dimitri watches Claude walk away, he feels his chest tighten up and something beginning to brew inside his throat. Trying to pass off the fact that he is literally choking on something, he quickly hurries back to the dormitories. He doesn’t make it past the training grounds before he collapses to the floor and begins to cough uncontrollably. The lack of oxygen reaching his head makes him grey out slightly as he heaves like a cat coughing up a furball. With one final, excruciatingly painful cough, the source of the problem flies from his mouth and lands on the floor. Gasping for breath, Dimitri wipes his mouth on the back of his gauntlet and is shocked at the amount of blood he sees. Risking a glance at the floor, he is greeted by the sight of five yellow petals covered in specks of blood. He can barely make out a cry for help from behind him as he passes out onto the ground. 

*

“It has to be, right? What else could cause him to cough up petals like this?”

“His Highness loves someone who doesn’t love him back? Is that even possible?”

“Of course it is, he’s a boar after all.”

“Felix, this is serious! If this isn’t treated, he’ll die!”

Dimitri drifts in and out of consciousness as the voices float through his mind. He can make out the harsh tones of Felix and the concerned voice of Ingrid, but the others merge together. He lets himself relax in the bed he’s in, thankful that he can actually breathe again. His throat, however, feels like someone has shoved sandpaper down it and worn it through.

“In...grid...” He manage to croak. “Water... Please...”

His head is lifted up and a cup of water is pressed against his mouth. He readily accepts it, allowing the cool liquid to soothe his aching throat. Within ten seconds, the cup is empty and he is begging for more. After his fourth cup of water, he begins to feel normal enough that he can open his eyes and examine his surroundings. He’s in the Infirmary, with his classmates looking down on him. Ingrid is squeezing hold of one hand, and Annette is holding onto the other.

“Oh, thank the Goddess.” Annette says, her voice breaking. She has been crying, judging by her bright red eyes and the tear streaks running down her face. “You really has us worried, Your Highness.”

“What happened?” Dimitri tries to sit up in bed, but is pushed back down by several pairs of hands. “I feel fine, really. Just a bad cold, that’s all.”

“Do you really call collapsing on the ground in a pile of petals a mere _cold_?!” Ingrid grabs him by the collar of his shirt and gives him a firm shake. “When did this happen?! How could you not tell us that you were suffering from this disease, Dimitri?! We’re your friends, we care about you!” Angry tears start falling from her eyes, which she wipes away with her sleeve. “Why didn’t you say that you had Hanahaki?”

“Hana-... Excuse me? What’s Hanahaki? I promise you, I feel much better.” Dimitri heaves himself up in bed, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his heart. “What is this about?”

“Hanahaki Disease... It’s something not many people know about.” Mercedes perches on the end of his bed, her hands resting on her lap. “There are only a few recorded cases, and no one seems to know where it comes from other than it occurs when there is unrequited love. It causes the victim to cough up flower petals, which increases in severity the longer it is left untreated.”

“There are only two know cures.” Annette grips on Dimitri’s hand. “Having the love returned, or having the root of the problem cut out. The love much be of a genuine romantic nature, or it won’t work. As for the surgery... It will cause the sufferer to lose all feelings towards the person they love, and in the worst-case scenario, they will forget about them.”

Dimitri flops back onto his pillow, feeling woozy and lightheaded from the sudden information. “So... There’s a flower growing inside of me, and it will kill me unless the person I love loves me back.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “I don’t even know who it is I supposedly love.”

“Well, neither do we. When did this start, Your Highness?” Mercedes pats Dimitri on the arm. “If it’s in the early stages, we can fix it before it gets worse.”

“This afternoon, I think. I came out of class and started coughing up the petals... I thought I was choking on some weeds.” Dimitri laughs, but it is a hollow laugh devoid of emotion. “I didn’t think I was actually dying.”

“Can I offer up a solution?” Sylvain says from somewhere at the back of the room. “You keep a diary of sorts, and make a note of what happened before each attack. Where you were, what you were doing, who you were talking to, stuff like that.” He offers a weak shrug. “Just an idea, though.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Ingrid smiles at Dimitri, her eyes watering. “We’ll all keep a close eye on you and observe what is happening during an attack. And for Goddess’s sake, Your Highness. Stop eating the weeds.”

*

After a week since the initial attack goes by smoothly with no further incidents, Dimitri starts to wonder if it had all been a false alarm and he really was just choking on some weeds. During a house meeting to discuss next month’s assignment, he tries hard not to focus on everyone watching him closely, ready to take notes the second a stray petal makes an appearance. He’s about to pass off everyone’s concern as unwarranted when he finds himself doubling over the teacher’s desk. Someone is smacking him on the back to aid the process as some petals make their way up his throat. He retches as the first bout of petals come falling from his mouth, the same bright yellow with specks of blood as before. Barely having enough time to fully processes them, he chokes out another mouthful of the same damned petals. Sprawling out over the top of the desk, he takes some deep breaths as he waits for the nausea to pass. The shouts of his classmates seem so far away, even though he can see Ingrid’s face right in front of his.

_I’m dying._

_Do you see this, Father? Glenn? Stepmother?_

_I’m dying from a flower growing in my lungs._

_I’ll be with you soon._

His vision still blurring, he feels himself being pulled back upright. His limbs seem to move of their own accord as he is guided to a desk and a glass of water is pressed into his hands. The lack of oxygen going around his body is making him feel a little delirious, alongside the fact that he is _actively dying and had no idea how to cure himself._

Time seems to pass by agonisingly slow before he feels himself returning back to normal. His father leaves him alone, and he is able to breathe normally. Leaning on Ingrid for support, he can only shake his head at her questions about where the attack came from. All he wants to do is sleep it off. The meeting is quickly called off as Dimitri is escorted back outside. The fresh air feels good in his lungs after nearly choking to death, so he asks to sit down on a bench for a few minutes until the aftermath has fully cleared up. As his classmates talk amongst themselves in hushed voices, Dimitri spots Claude pulling out some weeds with Hilda, his beautiful laughter filling his ears as he throws a handful of dandelions at his friend. As Dimitri watches, a lungful of petals threaten to burst out again, but he forces them back down with great difficulty. Claude spots him sitting on the bench and beams at him, waving at him with a fistful of dandelions. At the sight, a single petal escapes Dimitri’s mouth.

_Claude? Oh Gods, what if it’s Claude?_

_It can’t be him, surely?_

Still holding back the flower blooming inside his lungs, Dimitri gets to his feet and sprints over to the wall leading to a sheer cliff face. He leans over the wall and opens his mouth, watching as more stray petals fall into the ravine below. Reaching inside with two fingers, he pulls out four more petals, each one more blood stained than the last. As they join the others in the abyss, the only think he can think of is when the very first petal appeared from his mouth. He had been talking with Claude, and admiring how _good_ he looked in the summer sun. And now, just after admiring Claude doing the weeds, more petals formed in his throat.

A horrifying realisation hit him square in the chest.

_Goddess above, it is him._

_He can’t possibly love me back_.

“Perhaps you should get some rest, Your Highness?” Someone – Dedue? – says as Dimitri tries to stand up straight and finds himself wobbling into a pair of arms. He doesn’t argue back as he is lifted off his feet and carried back to the dormitories.

*

Dimitri’s condition worsens after that fateful day. Instead of having a week between coughing fits, he has days, and then hours. His strength is sapped away as the disease fully takes over, with all of his energy spent on coughing up more and more petals. He becomes bedridden, banned from leaving his bedroom at all cost. Regular meals are brought to his room, along with any reading materials he needs to catch up on his work. Not that gets much of a chance to do his homework. He spends most of his time asleep, praying that the Goddess will take him in his sleep so he doesn’t feel in pain anymore. Every time he wakes up with more flowers in his lungs, he feels like this is a divine punishment for not avenging the deaths of his father, and of Glenn. And yet, despite everything, he cannot bring himself to come clean about who it is he loves. No matter how many people pester him to just _tell me who you love, please!_ , he doesn’t want to put the burden of forced love on the boy he likes.

On Claude.

He remembers Annette telling him that the love has to be genuine, and trying to force it will not work at all. The last he wants is for Claude to be forced to love him, and then be overcome with guilt when he dies away. And he can’t bring himself to have the feelings cut away, as he doesn’t want to ever forget Claude and how he lights up his life.

_I still want to see him one last time before I die_.

“Dedue... Fetch Claude for me. I need to see him.” Dimitri whispers, his throat incredibly raw after coughing up a dozen or so petals. “Please, before it’s too late.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” Dedue bows and quickly turns away before he can start crying. Dimitri’s slow and inevitable demise has deeply affected everyone in the Officer’s Academy, but it’s hit the Blue Lions the hardest. All of their visits end with them clinging onto the dying prince and begging him not to leave.

The pain of seeing his friends lose their composure almost hurts as much as the flowers growing in his lungs.

As soon as the door to his bedroom is closed, Dimitri leans over off the edge of his bed and begins to cough. He expects some more petals to come flying out, but they seem stubbornly lodged in his throat. He heaves some more, trying to dislodge them, even going as far as to stick fingers down his throat to force himself to throw up, but nothing happens. Panic fully setting in, Dimitri falls out of bed and loudly gasps for air as he hammers on his chest in an attempt to clear his throat. He begins to black out as he chokes, silently making a prayer for the Goddess to take him before the pain gets even worse.

A sharp slap on his back manages to dislodge whatever it was that was killing him, and it flies out his mouth and lands on the floor in a pile of blood. To his horror, the petals have been upgraded to a whole damn flower, with more on the way. His mysterious saviour alternates between giving him firm slaps on the back and soothing massages until all the flowers have been brought up. By the time Dimitri has finished, there is a whole bouquet of daffodils on the floor. Short on air, he falls backwards into the arms of the person who has brought him a bit more time before his demise.

“Hey there, Your... Your Princeliness...”

Dimitri moves his gaze from the blood-stained flowers to Claude, who appears to have been crying. A lot. He’s crying now as he holds Dimitri close and rocks him back and forth.

“Who did this to you? Who... Who _dares_ to not love you back? How could someone not love someone like you?” He rubs a hand up and down Dimitri’s back. “You’re _you_ , the dashing Prince Charming of Faerghus. You’re kind to everyone you meet, you help out those who need it, and you don’t even ask for anything back. It’s hard to believe someone _doesn’t_ love you in some way.”

Listening to Claude rambling, Dimitri feels his chest become a little lighter. Not completely cleared, but certainly better than it has felt in the past month or so. Feeling brave, or perhaps light headed from the recent coughing fit, he lifts up a hand to stroke Claude’s cheek. “You love me?”

Claude scoffs, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course I do.” He pulls Dimitri tighter, resting their heads together. “I swear, whoever did this to you is going to pay.”

Feeling the pain beginning to subside, Dimitri allows himself to be wrapped up in Claude’s embrace. He coughs up a few stray petals. but they pale in comparison to the mass of flowers that came before. Feeling tired and drained from it all, he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep, a warm sensation spreading from his heart. 

*

Dimitri awakens to a bright beam of sunlight shining through his window. Thinking about how there are worse days to die on, he closes his eyes again and waits for the flowers to fill up his lungs. Instead, when he manages to take a full lungful of air and not choke, he frowns. Opening his eyes and holding his hand to his chest, he takes another deep breath of air and realises that, somehow, he has been cured.

Throwing back his duvet cover, he slowly sits up in case the flowers have become settled and are about to move again. But when he sits upright and is still able to breathe normally, he can’t help but let out a relieved laugh. There are no more blooms growing inside him, no more petals flowing from his mouth, _no more flowers threatening to kill him_. The bloodied bouquet that nearly ended him has been cleaned up, along with the piles of blood-stained tissues. Everything is as it was before he fell ill. 

He heaves himself to his feet, wobbling slightly due being bedridden for weeks on end. A quick glance in the mirror shows just how close he came to death. His skin, normally pale with a hint of a tan, is sickly grey. Due to his lack of appetite, he has lost a lot of weight and his body looks and _feels_ gaunt. His hair is in desperate need of a wash, and there are deep bags under his eyes.

But he is _alive_.

Taking in his room once more, which still smells of blood and death, he notices a figure fast asleep at his desk, head resting on his arms. Kneeling down to get a closer look, Dimitri’s heart swells when he recognises Claude. He gently shakes him awake, trying not hard to fall even more in love at the confused noise that Claude makes as he rubs the sleepy dust from his eyes and yawns.

“Hmm? What is it, I... Dimitri? You’re... You’re okay?” Claude says quietly, reaching down to cup Dimitri’s face. “You’re alive?”

Dimitri nods, running a hand through Claude’s incredibly messy bedhead.

_Gods, he looks so cute first thing in the morning_.

“Thanks to you, I am.” He says, wondering how best to go about confessing. _A dramatic kiss on the lips? No, too soon. A kiss on the forehead? Hmm, maybe. But still a little forward_. In the end, he lifts up Claude’s hand and presses a soft kiss onto it. “It seems whatever you said last night has worked.”

Claude seems to short circuit as he stares at the hand Dimitri has kissed. He stammers a bit before clearing his throat and attempting to regain his composure.

“Me? It was me all along? Oh, you fool.” Claude lightly punches Dimitri on the shoulder, no real malice behind the punch. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why let it get to the stage where you were about to die before doing anything?”

Dimitri sheepishly averts his gaze, a blush creeping along his face. “I didn’t think you reciprocated my feelings. I... I didn’t want you to feel the burden of pretending to love me in an attempt to cure me, and then feel guilty when I died anyway.”

“Gods, you are so selfless, almost to a fault.” Claude slides off the chair, landing on his knees and linking their hands together. “If you had just told me, or anyone, you wouldn’t have almost died. I’ll admit, I was scared that you were going to die on me when I got to your room and saw you choking. Your face was blue... And when I saw the daffodils, I knew you didn’t have much time. When you fell asleep, I stayed with you as long as I could, ready to help you when the next attack happened.” He leans forwards and rests his head against Dimitri’s shoulder. “When it didn’t, I thought that someone has finally come to their senses and reciprocated your love. I guess it was us all along.” 

Dimitri lets go of Claude’s hands and pulls him into a hug, taking full advantage of having clean lungs. He looks at the sun shining through the window, his heart full of love for the boy in his arms. He softly plants a kiss on the side of his head.

There would be concerns, of course, about their relationship and what it holds for the future of the Kingdom and Alliance. They would undoubtedly have to go their separate ways by the end of the school year, but that is all the in the future.

_Besides, I’m sure everyone will prefer me being with Claude than coughing up flowers._

_I know I do_.


End file.
